In Stolen Identity Refund Fraud ("SIRF") cases, the Assistant Attorney General, Tax Division, has delegated to the United States Attorney’s Office the authority to (1) open tax-related grand jury investigations; (2) charge by criminal complaint persons engaged in SIRF crimes; and (3) seek and obtain seizure warrants for forfeiture of criminally derived proceeds arising from SIRF crimes, without prior approval from the Tax Division. The IRS-CI may or may not participate in the SIRF investigation. All subsequent charging decisions by way of indictment, information, or superseding indictment/information must be authorized in advance by the Tax Division. Expedited review procedures between the United States Attorneys' Offices and the Tax Division are available for proposed indictments/informations arising from SIRF investigations. See Tax Division Directive No. 144 and Memorandum dated September 18, 2012, from AAG Kathryn Keneally to All United States Attorneys re: Expedited and Parallel Review of Proposed Indictments Arising from Stolen Identity Refund Fraud, available at Criminal Tax Manual, Chapter 3.

SIRF cases involve a fraudulent claim (or attempted claim) for a tax refund wherein the fraudulent claim for refund (i.e. tax return) is in the name of a person whose personal identification information appears to have been stolen or unlawfully used to make the claim, and the claim is intended to benefit someone other than the person to whom the personal identification information belongs. SIRF cases also include the negotiation (or attempted negotiation), possession, or transfer of refund proceeds resulting from the above-defined scheme.

For purposes of illustration, SIRF crimes generally implicate the following criminal statutes: 18 U.S.C. § 286 (conspiracy as to false claims), 18 U.S.C. § 287 (false claims), 18 U.S.C. § 510 (Treasury check forgery), 18 U.S.C. § 641 (theft of public money), 18 U.S.C. § 1028 (identity theft), 18 U.S.C. § 1028A (aggravated identity theft), 18 U.S.C. § 1029 (access device fraud), 18 U.S.C. § 1341 (mail fraud), 18 U.S.C. § 1343 (wire fraud), 18 U.S.C. § 1708 (theft or receipt of stolen mail) and/or 18 U.S.C. § 1709 (mail theft by postal employee).

[updated June 2020]